Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready Makes Music with Foster Kids: Watch

The guitarist hooked up with nonprofit organization Treehouse to create an opportunity for five kids who’ve lived in the foster system to come together and make music in a recording studio.

“They help foster kids that are in dire need of finishing their education, providing funding for summer camps and lessons, even new clothes – all the things a lot of us take for granted,” McCready told Rolling Stoneabout connecting with the organization ten years ago when he volunteered to help them wrap holiday presents.

Treehouse and McCready brought the five young people to Pearl Jam’s recording studio, resulting a song, “Try So Hard.”

“The song just organically happened,” McCready said. “We were sitting around, and it was amazing that it came together the way it did. The guys had some rap going on, beat boxing, some guitars, bass and drums. They created a song, and I got to play along with it. It generally doesn’t happen that way, and it was really cool.”

Among the five musicians included Franky Price, an aspiring 20-year-old rapper who’s suffered with depression and last year survived both heart and back surgeries.

Prince bonded with McCready over the guitarist’s own battle with health issues, having been very public with his Crohn’s disease diagnosis.

“I found it inspiring to learn that he was somebody who had been through health scares and suffered from a lot of depression but that he’s still here today making music,” Price said of the Pearl Jam guitarist.